Wednesday, December 19, 2012

Won't Miss #6: APO address

Having an APO address has has many benefits and one, relatively minor all things considered, annoyance. In case anyone is wondering, APO address is a sort of PO Box address used for military overseas, which allows for mail to be sent using domestic prices instead of international.

The problem comes up when some companies or sellers simply don't ship to APO addresses either because of restrictions or because the simply don't want to. I understand when there are restrictions, like mailing nail polish or lithium batteries, but a lot of times I can't even get non-restricted items to be sent to me. In other times, it takes a very long time for me to get items. I've started asking people to only use USPS priority mail instead of First Class or FedEx, because the latter two take almost two month to get to me. I also avoid using companies that I know use those services.

On the other side of the problem are restrictions that I have to abide by. I also can't mail any nail polish, perfume, lithium batteries, and other stuff that I don't recall at the moment back to the US. It makes thinking about any gifts extra troublesome, because I can't mail some of the things I know my friends and family would love.

While the benefits of having an APO address definitely outweigh the negative aspects, I will not miss getting excited over something only to find out that the company won't ship to me or that I'm not allowed to ship it back to the US.

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